Wednesday, July 3
The Twilight of an Empire: The Russo-Ukrainian War in the Eyes of a Historian from 5 to 6:30 p.m. at the Center for Government and International Studies, 1737 Cambridge St., Baldwin neighborhood near Harvard Square, Cambridge. Free. Harvard’s Serhii Plokhii offers a definitive account of this conflict, its origins, course and the already apparent and possible future consequences. Information is here.
Poets Jules Jacob, Steven Riel and Amanda Shaw from 7 to 8 p.m. at Grolier Poetry Book Shop on 6 Plympton St., Harvard Square, Cambridge. $5 to $10, but register. With an introduction by Joshua Nguyen. Information is here.
Divergent series classical music performances at 7:30 p.m. at the Longy School of Music, 27 Garden St., Harvard Square, Cambridge (through Thursday). Free, but register. Longy’s Divergent Trio – an ensemble of new music specialists and Longy faculty made up of Corrine Byrne, Ralph Farris and Donald Berman play new pieces by composers in the Divergent Studio. Information is here.
Bachata Room dance party from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. at La Fábrica Central, 450 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square, Cambridge (and every Wednesday). $15 and 18-plus (21-plus to drink). An hourlong bachata dance lesson for beginners followed by social dancing to DJ music (salsa, bachata and kizomba). No partner required, walk-ins welcome. Information is here.
Thursday, July 4
Divergent series classical music performances at 1:30 p.m. at the Longy School of Music, 27 Garden St., Harvard Square, Cambridge (through Thursday). Free, but register. A concert of new pieces in a program called Divergent Speed: Students were given only 24 hours to write 2 minutes of music for small mixed ensembles, who are then given an additional 24 hours to learn and rehearse the music. “This concert is a true test of students’ artistry, limiting opportunity for refinement and relying totally on raw creativity,” the school says. Information is here.
Tour the Old Powder House from 6 to 8 p.m. at Nathan Tufts/Powderhouse Park, College Avenue and Broadway, Somerville (and various dates through October). Free. A docent opens and gives tours of the old stone building from which the British removed gunpowder 250 years ago this year, resulting in the Powder Alarm. Information is here.
Launchpad dance night at 9 p.m. at ZuZu, 474 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square, Cambridge. Free. Jake Lacey curates a DJ night aiming to broaden the term “dance music” in house, techno, breaks, UKG, minimal and deep tech genres. Information is here.
Friday, July 5
Deep Dive Tour: Poetry Experience from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. at Longfellow House and the Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site, 105 Brattle St., West Cambridge. Free. Park rangers explore some of Henry Longfellow’s best works in the home that inspired him. Information is here.
Rollerama from 2 to 8 p.m. at Kendall Common, Broadway and Third Street, Kendall Square, Cambridge (on most days through Sept. 29). Free. A pop-up outdoor roller-skating rink atop a 7,000-square-foot mural by artist Massiel Grullón with gear provided for use and lessons. Information is here.
Live Music Fridays from 6 to 8 p.m. at Assembly Row, 355 Artisan Way, Assembly Square, Somerville (and continuing every other Friday through Sept. 13). Free. Today Junior – brothers Mike and Harry O’Toole and bass player Hannah Blauner – performs indie rock at this outdoor concert. Information is here.
Divergent studio music performance at 7:30 p.m. at the Longy School of Music, 27 Garden St., Harvard Square, Cambridge (through Thursday). Free, but register. The group loadbang plays compositions written by students in Longy’s 13-day Divergent Studio program. Information is here.
Sofar Sounds concert from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. at Lamplighter CX, 110 N. First St., North Point, Cambridge. $27 and 21-plus. You buy the tickets but won’t know who’s playing until they take the mic. Promised are two to three short sets from “incredible performers from all musical genres and sometimes even spoken word, comedy or dance.” Information is here.
Zachariah Hickman’s Parlor of Playfulness at 8 p.m. at Club Passim, 47 Palmer St., Harvard Square, Cambridge. $25. Hickman brings to the stage a Dalí mustache, tuba, costume changes and sense of humor for a show the folk club advertises wryly as “strange and fun and humorous and sensitive and hopefully – occasionally – good.” Information is here.
All-American DJ Jam at Boston Swing Central from 8 to 11:45 p.m. at Q Ballroom, 26 New St., Fresh Pond, Cambridge. $13. An hour of lessons, then a night of dancing. Information is here.
Saturday, July 6
Lo-Fi Saturdays at Pepita from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Lamplighter Brewing, 284 Broadway, The Port, Cambridge. Free. Chill, ambient music is the background as folks read, work and study with minimal talking at this new regular event in the brewery’s backroom coffee shop. Information is here.
Family Fun Saturdays from 10 a.m. to noon at Longfellow House and the Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site, 105 Brattle St., West Cambridge (and every Saturday through Sept. 2). Free. Family-friendly crafts, games, stories and activities for children ages 2-8 accompanied by an adult. Information is here.
Rollerama (continued) from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Kendall Common, Broadway and Third Street, Kendall Square, Cambridge (through Sept. 29). Free. Information is here.
Vintage clothing pop-up market from noon to 6:30 p.m. at Arts at the Armory, 191 Highland Ave., Somerville. Free. More than 40 vendors, tooth gems, tats, live DJs, screen-printing, free yerba and more, presented by Select Markets. Information is here.
Discover Mount Auburn walking tour from 1 to 2:30 p.m. at Mount Auburn Cemetery, 580 Mount Auburn St., West Cambridge. $10, but registration is required. A history-infused 1.5-mile walking tour of this National Historic Landmark, which is the final resting place of nearly 100,000 people – including many famous ones – along with being home to 700 animal species and varieties of trees, beautiful sculpture and gloriously gloomy tombs and mausoleums. Information is here.
Nature Play Day from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at the Magazine Beach Park Nature Center, at the river end of Magazine Street, Cambridgeport. Free. Search the park for interesting plants and animals, learn what makes each unique, and play games along the way. Information is here.
Divergent music Finale 1 at 1:30 p.m. at the Longy School of Music, 27 Garden St., Harvard Square, Cambridge. Free to $20. Students and faculty of the Divergent Studio present a concert of works by Galina Ustvolskaja, Salvatore Sciarrino, Mario Diaz de Leon, Hannah Kendall, Joanna Bailie, Vinko Globokar, Beth Wiemann, Qi Li, Michael Finnissy and Chen Yihan. Information is here.
Divergent music Finale 2 at 7:30 p.m. at the Longy School of Music, 27 Garden St., Harvard Square, Cambridge. Free to $20. Students and faculty of the Divergent Studio present a concert of works by Folke Rabe, Cassandra Miller, Christina Lord, Matthew Ricketts, David Sampson, Matthew Evan Taylor, Helmut Lachenmann, Sofia Rocha and Julius Eastman. Information is here.
Presentation party at 5 p.m. at Möbius Strip Club Sandwich, 25 Mount Vernon St., East Somerville. Free. Bring a special interest, project or research to share or a hill to die on and present it to an eager audience with an option to accept heckling (maybe depending on whether your presentation is silly or serious). Try presentation karaoke, in which you get a random presentation and see how well you can sell it, and vote on themes for future events. Information is here.
Sunday, July 7
Lindy Hopcats practice from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Cambridge Community Center for the Arts, 41 Second St. (enter from the side-street patio), East Cambridge. $5 (cash or Venmo). Semi-structured practice sessions for motivated dancers at all levels. No partner required. Information is here.
Rollerama (continued) from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Kendall Common, Broadway and Third Street, Kendall Square, Cambridge (through Sept. 29). Free. Information is here.
Nature Poetry Readings from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Mass Audubon Nature Center at Magazine Beach, 668 Memorial Drive, Cambridgeport. Free. Poems that explore our relationship with the natural world, including the current climate threat. Information is here.
Summer Boston Celtic Music Fest from 3 to 10 p.m. on Palmer Street and at Club Passim, 47 Palmer St., Harvard Square, Cambridge. Free until evening concerts costing $25. Club Passim hosts music and dance performances originating in Irish, Scottish, Cape Breton and other Celtic traditions, starting with the Youth Fiddle Group and Mrs. Wilberforce before moving inside for sets by Elias Cardoso and Friends, The Adam Hendey Band and Eight Feet Tall. Information is here.
Activist Afternoons from 4 to 6 p.m. at St. James’s Episcopal Church, 1991 Massachusetts Ave., Porter Square, Cambridge (and the first and third Sunday of every month). Free. Drop-in and write postcards, do phone banking and more focused on promoting civic engagement and social justice across the country. Information is here.
watch party from 8:30 to 10 p.m. at Lamplighter Brewing, 284 Broadway, The Port, Cambridge. Free. A group watch of the HBO series with drinking games and dragon-inspired beer flights. Try not to go to work Monday with the mother of all hangovers. Information is here.
Monday, July 8
“Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse” screening at 6:30 p.m. at the Somerville Public Library, 79 Highland Ave., on Central Hill. Free. In anticipation of the library’s upcoming ComixCon, catch this PG-rated film that reviewer Tom Meek gave a thumbs-up to in 2018: “If you’re a Spider-Man fan, there’s lots packed in … It’s packaged to cut smartly across cultural and generational lines, with animation that’s similarly something new and something old.” Information is here.
Julia Phillips reads from “Bear” at 7 p.m. at Porter Square Books, 25 White St., Porter Square, Cambridge. Free. Two sisters struggling with dead-end jobs and lives on an island off the coast of Washington have different reactions to a beast that visits their home. It’s “less a novel than a fairy tale for the strange times in which we live,” according to a blurb from author Rumaan Alam. The interlocutor is Rachel Lyon, author of “Self-Portrait With Boy.” Information is here.
Rachel Zimmerman reads from “Us, After: A Memoir of Love and Suicide” from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the MIT Press Bookstore, 314 Main St., Kendall Square, Cambridge. Free. If you missed the former Wall Street Journal reporter at her reading in Porter Square on Monday, don’t miss out on a catch-up event with resonance for the MIT community. She has a memoir about her obsessive search of answers after the 2014 suicide of her husband – Seth Teller, the East Cambridge activist and Massachusetts Institute of Technology robotics professor. She interviewed doctors, researchers and even a man who jumped off the same bridge and lived and now looks at the struggle between public and private selves, shifting perspectives, motherhood and secrets. Ellen Barry, mental health reporter for The New York Times, joins. Information is here.
Trivia night from 7 to 9 p.m. at Lamplighter CX, 110 N. First St., North Point, Cambridge. Free. If you’re a trivia fiend, you know that the Sporcle-owned Stump program dominates the region from night to night and bar to bar. This weekly game for teams of two to six people in categories ranging from history and politics to sports and movies to pop culture and music has a different flavor worth sampling – it’s by King Trivia.The top three teams get gift cards usable at Lamplighter or Pepita coffee. Information is here.
Tuesday, July 9
Summer Solstice Celebration with ice cream from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Kendall/MIT Open Space at 292 Main St., Kendall Square, Cambridge. Free, but register. Rescheduled from June because of bad weather, this event has free ice cream, music from DJ Knszwrth, DIY hanging planters with horticulturist Grace Coburn of Old Dog Design and food trucks for buying lunch. Information is here.
Summer Nights Paddling from 4:45 to 8 p.m. at the Nature Center at Magazine Beach, 668 Memorial Drive, Cambridgeport. Free and 12-plus, but register. This guided ecotour by kayak welcomes paddlers of all abilities. Gear is provided, and the program begins with beginner paddler instruction. Information is here.
Chrysalis performs from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Urban Park Roof Garden at Kendall Center, 325 Main St., Kendall Square, Cambridge. Free. Berklee singer-songwriter Indigo Ansin fuses American folk and grunge indie rock in her set at this summer concert series. Information is here.
“Book Moot” discusses “Delicious in Dungeon” by Ryoko Kui at 6:30 p.m. at Pandemonium Books & Games, 4 Pleasant St., Central Square, Cambridge. $30 with the book, and registration required. Buy and talk about this two-volume graphic novel that follows a group of adventurers thinking they know how to pack light to explore dungeons: Expect to kill and eat the monsters they encounter. Information is here.
Laura van den Berg reads from “State of Paradise” at 7 p.m. at Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Ave., Harvard Square, Cambridge. Free. The Harvard author of “The Third Hotel” talks about her new novel, in which a corporate gift of virtual reality devices just makes life in Florida even more weird, with ominous cats, missing citizens, a mother’s burgeoning cult and the fact that the hero’s belly button has become an increasingly deep cavern. Shuchi Sarawat, editor of the Agni literary journal, joins. Information is here.
Trash TV Tuesdays from 7:30 to 9 p.m at Lamplighter CX, 110 N. First St., North Point, Cambridge. As reasons to get together for a beer, you could do worse than a rewatch of “America’s Next Top Model” starting with Season 3. Information is here.
Julia Masli’s “‘Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha” at 9 p.m. at The Rockwell, 255 Elm St., Davis Square, Somerville. $25 to $30. Masli, a clown from Estonia now based in London, goes from one audience member to another asking “Problem?” so she can figure out how to help. The show has been a smash everywhere it goes, starting with a run at the Edinburgh Fringe. Information is here.
Wednesday, July 10
Nemarca performs at noon at the Urban Park Roof Garden at Kendall Center, 325 Main St., Kendall Square, Cambridge. Free. Club Passim hosts this solo project of Anna Reidister as part of its free lunchtime outdoor concert series on Wednesdays through Aug. 28. Expect ambient textures and intricate melodies. Information is here.
Lauren Lee McCarthy “Profiling” art event from noon to 7 p.m. at the List Visual Arts Center, 20 Ames St., Kendall Square, Cambridge. Free. Come exchange saliva – after setting the terms of use to print, lick and exchange with another participant – in this performance piece that looks at how much information about ourselves is taken for corporate and government use and examines themes of bodily autonomy, data privacy, race, gender and class. Information is here.
Rollerama (continued) from 2 to 8 p.m. at Kendall Common, Broadway and Third Street, Kendall Square, Cambridge (through Sept. 29). Free. Information is here.
Gary Janetti reads from “We Are Experiencing a Slight Delay: (tips, tales, travels)” from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Cambridge Main Library, 449 Broadway, Mid-Cambridge. Free. Stories of traveling and discovery with a writer and producer for “Family Guy” and “Will & Grace,” social media maven and bestselling author of “Start Without Me” and “Do You Mind If I Cancel?” Information is here.
Poets Tom Laughlin, Matthew Porto and Ryan Wilson from 7 to 8 p.m. at Grolier Poetry Book Shop on 6 Plympton St., Harvard Square, Cambridge. $5 to $10, but register. With an introduction by Daniel Tobin. Information is here.
Moms Unhinged comedy at 7:30 p.m. at Somerville Theatre’s Crystal Ballroom, 55 Davis Square. $25. “Motherhood, midlife crises, marriage, divorce, online dating and other things that irritate us” with Andrea Marie, Kari Stern, Catherine Shea and headliner Janae Burris. Dads welcome. Information is here.
Screen on the Green from 7:15 to 9:30 p.m. at Hoyt Field (Gilmore and Montague streets off Western Avenue), Riverside, Cambridge (rain site: Moore Youth Center, 12 Gilmore St.). Free. Bring a picnic blanket and your favorite snacks and watch “DC League of Super Pets.” Information is here.
The Lilypad Variety Show from 10 p.m. to midnight at Lilypad, 1353 Cambridge St., Inman Square. $5. Music, comedy, dance, poetry, art and film may make its way to the stage. Information is here.
Thursday, July 11
Animals in person from 2 to 3 p.m. at the Cambridge library’s O’Neill Branch, 70 Rindge Ave., North Cambridge. Free and for all ages. Meet “wildlife ambassadors” and discover the adaptations that help them survive in the wild. Presenters will take questions and explain what you can do to protect the wildlife of Cambridge. Information is here.
Rollerama (continued) from 2 to 8 p.m. at Kendall Common, Broadway and Third Street, Kendall Square, Cambridge (through Sept. 29). Free. Information is here.
Emma Gimeno performs at 5:30 p.m. on Palmer Street, Harvard Square, Cambridge. Free. The Spaniard combines R&B, neo-soul, jazz and pop. Information is here.
Animal and Ice Cream Social from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Mass Audubon Nature Center at Magazine Beach, 668 Memorial Drive, Cambridgeport. Free. Meet a live “animal ambassador,” learn about the adaptations that help them survive and grab some ice cream before an evening stroll in the park to discover local wildlife. Information is here.
After Dark: Bugs from 6 to 9 p.m. at The MIT Museum, 314 Main St., Kendall Square, Cambridge. $20, but 21-plus. Check out robotic astro ants, Alaskan insects and edible crickets, catch a talk with biologist Yukiko Yamashita on fruit flies and evolution, enjoy(?) an arthropod petting zoo and head to the Maker Hub to build and race your own buzz bug. Pizza and drinks from Johnny Pomodoro are available for purchase. Information is here.
Hike and Brew from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. starting at the Mass Audubon Nature Center at Magazine Beach, 668 Memorial Drive, Cambridgeport. $12, and registration is required. This event guides 20- and 30-somethings on a 2.5-mile walk to Night Shift’s beer garden in Boston on the Esplanade. Information is here.
Sourdough workshop from 7 to 8 p.m. at The Growing Center, 22 Vinal Ave., near Union Square, Somerville. Free. Learn tips and techniques to creating your own sourdough bread at home. Some limited sourdough starter will be available.
Mattie & Debbie perform at 8 p.m. at Club Passim, 47 Palmer St., Harvard Square, Cambridge. $20. Mattie & Debbie are Sean Trischka and Stash Wyslouch, who continue a peculiar week at the folk club with their combination of bluegrass, performance art, punk, funk and pop. Information is here.
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